Category: computing

Looks like some wacky frenchman has created a CPU monitor from the battery tester on the side of a Duracell battery.

Goes to this guy for ripping out the guts of a G5 and putting in some in AMD motherboard.

Following up on my post on Setting up a Linux box as an iTunes Server, it would appear that someone has taken alot of the hardwork out of setting this up. The Multi-Threaded DAAP Daemon has everything you need to get a linux box started as an iTunes server. All that’s needed is to install the software (available as RPMs for Fedora Core 1, Redhat Linux 9 and Debian), created a directory with the music in it, tell the configuration file where the mp3s are, and start the service. Away you go! And it also has a web interface for configuration as well.

Both Mac OS X Hints have articles on setting up a Linux box as an iTunes Server. Basically three things are required: the Apple Rendezvous multicast DNS advertiser, a daapd service and a Samba share called “music”. Very nice. This could solve the problem of having music spread across a couple of computers at home. Now all I need is a larger hard drive for my server.

Currently there are no rpm packages for Rendezvous or daapd, so I guess I could build some of those up during the week. Also of note (to perhaps put in the daapd package) is an init script for the daapd service.

Continue reading “Setting up a Linux box as an iTunes Server”

So last night I hit up the Weapons of Mass Distraction exhibition opening night with Rozie, Adam, Thommy (sorry for making you miss the bus, sorry for giving you a lift there mate! :P) and Hal. BJ rocked up later as well. Absolutely heaps of consoles, Hanimex’s, Sega’s, Nintendo’s, ColecoVision’s, Intellivision’s and other systems I’ve never heard of or seen before. Crazy stuff. There was also artwork there from Caib, Shute, Boots, Sayno and others. Rozie even decided to buy one of the pieces. Wow, our first piece of bought art!

And there are photos of pretty much every console in the exhibtion in my gallery.

A great, unbiased, in-depth article is over at Kernel Thread going to great lengths on what makes Mac OS X, Mac OS X. It covers everything from a brief history, to architecture (architecture, booting, the kernel, above the kernel, system startup, filesystems) to programming to features to software.

OK, so it across all the nerd sites at the moment, so you’ve probably already seen it. Unless you check my blog first thing before any other site (of course you do!!). Apple announced a new iPod, the iPod mini and a new G5-based Xserve. Droooool…. Rack me up baby!

Over at Lik Sang, there is an in-depth review of the new Sony PSX [1,2] device, which is a PVR and Playstation in one.

At the moment BJ’s old Apple Powerbook G3 laptop seems to have crapped out. It can’t boot off its hard drive (it times out and then eventually boots in read-only mode after a while) and booting off CD media seems to have just as pathetic results. I guess the hard drive, the DVD-ROM drive and possibly the entire ATA bus are ratshit.

Anyway, not being one to bow out of a challenge (or the jibes from my wife that I might have to get a “Mac Guy” to help me out, pffft), I’ve been looking into possibilites of getting this thing going. Being the kind of that I am in the line of work that I’m in, I instantly thought “Aha, network install. How hard can that be?” I do these everyday at work and their easy as all hell.

Well not in the Mac world (well OK, its kinda easy, but involved at the same time). Basically you need a Mac OS X Server (which I don’t have a copy of, nor do I have a spare Mac lying around to setup anyhow). So I thought, someone has to have figured out to setup a Linux box to serve out Netinstall requests of Mac OS clients. Thankfully, I was in luck. It looks like it requires patching ISC DHCP server, and then the request requires pretty standard open source software which comes with pretty much any distro of Linux or *nix.

It looks like there is some binary RPMs for distros that swing that way. If I get the time I guess I’ll compile some Fedora RPMs. Might even stick ’em online if I get the time.

Hopefully I’ll have this all up and running by tomorrow, and I’ll be able to report back some success. If I fail, I’ll guess I’ll probably go for the install off a firewire drive option (Yeah, I know. Its easier than setting up a Netinstall server, but it ain’t as much of a challenge 🙂 )

Find out what it is at iPod’s Dirty Secret.

Well, I’d bring back mine to life if some bastard who I lent mine to 9 years ago would give it back (its probably a burnt out door stop now 🙁 ) Slashdot.org is running a story on an ethernet adapter for the old personal computer. It apparently hooks into the expansion port of a Retro Replay card. The operation system Contiki has support for the card. Contiki featues a TCP/IP stack, a web server, a web browser, a VNC client and a GUI. Have a look here for a screenshot of this in action.

Apparently it’s not the only option for networking your C64 either. There is also The Final Ethernet as well. It looks like its more of a DIY job though, with no plans to put it into production. Also, if you’re still wanting to upgrade your C64, CMDRKey.com offer hard drives, CPU accelerators and RAM drives.

I’ve been testing out a Palm Zire 71 at work. It has an in-built camera, which takes reasonable low resolution shots. 640×480 resolution to be exact. Its a bit slow, but it makes for fun blurry night shots.